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  Salyut 4, launched in December 1974, was a complete success, being visited by three Soyuz crews, including one that stayed for 63 days. Unmanned Soyuz capsules remained docked with it for prolonged periods, proving the Soyuz system’s versatility and durability. The age of the Soviet space station had truly begun.

  TIMELINE

  1973 14 May US launches 85-ton Skylab, its first manned space station, with first crew Kerwin, Conrad and Weitz

  September Russians restart their Soyuz program, with the launch of Soyuz 12

  18 December Russians launch Soyuz 13

  1974 29 March US space probe Mariner 10 completes a flyby of planet Mercury

  26 December Russians launch their space station Salyut 4

  “We actually came to have a very close relationship with the Soviet crew”

  EAST MEETS WEST IN ORBIT

  THE APOLLO-SOYUZ TEST PROJECT

  1975

  The year 1975 saw the first international cooperative venture in space when American astronauts, taking part in the final Apollo flight, docked in space with Soviet cosmonauts in a Soyuz craft. Although there was a scientific dimension to the mission that would prove useful in the future Shuttle-Mir program, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was largely a symbolic gesture of détente between the nations.

  “Man this was worth waiting 16 years for,” said Deke Slayton, 51, as he blasted off with Tom Stafford and Vance Brand in the Saturn for the first international space mission. Slayton, one of the original Mercury 7, was making his first spaceflight, having been grounded for a heart murmur that was years afterward regarded as trivial.

  Although the international mission, a docking between an Apollo and a Soyuz capsule, was mainly about goodwill, for the American crew it was still welcome, since it was clear that it would be many years before there would be another flight opportunity with the Space Shuttle which was under development.

  Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov (left) and astronaut Deke Slayton (right) greet each other in space.

  Speaking the Language

  Vance Brand, 44, was also on his first mission and was the Command Module pilot. He recalled:

  At that time I’d just gotten off a backup assignment with Apollo 15, and I was a backup crewman on through the Skylab missions and very up to date on the Command Module and Service Module, things that would be used on the Apollo-Soyuz mission. I decided that I was interested enough that I attended some of the banquets that the Soviet cosmonauts were attending here. On my own, I went off, took Russian lessons. I paid for my own Russian lessons on Saturdays and got into their language and their culture a little bit.

  When we got with the Soviets, they had their security monitors, and you could see that it was a less trusting, more closed society, but on the other hand, as human beings [they] that opened up more and more, I thought, in our relationships. We actually came to have a very close relationship with the Soviet crew.

  A Handshake in Space

  In orbit, the two craft docked and, after their cabin atmospheres were equalized (the Apollo used low-pressure oxygen whereas the Soyuz used air at one atmosphere of pressure), the time came for the handshake in space and the exchange of gifts.

  Brand: On the first transfer, Deke and Tom went into the Soyuz, and I stayed back in the Command Module, sort of minding the store, so to speak, holding the attitude for the stack of vehicles which consisted of Soyuz and Apollo and Docking Module. Tom and Deke went in, and, of course, there was a big greeting—and they went into the Soyuz, they had something to eat, signed some documents, and more or less made an international relations thing out of the first visit. Then later we had other transfers back and forth. I went over on one, and I was in the Soyuz for four and a half hours. Valeri Kubasov and I were together in Soyuz. Aleksei Leonov, on the other hand, was visiting Tom and Deke in our spacecraft. We couldn’t freely go back and forth because of the airlock in between.

  After the final undocking, they went to a lower orbit and speeded up and went ahead of us. We had tried to play a little joke on them at that point. Before the mission, on the ground, I had made a tape at home, and my daughter Stephanie and a friend helped me make it. We turned on shower water. They weren’t in a shower, but it sounded like it. Both girls were about 18 or 19 years old, and so they made a lot of noise, which made it sound like somebody was in a shower just having a ball, a lot of giggling and stuff. So after the Russians were ahead of us, oh, 3 or 400 miles, and we had watched them go out ahead of us and probably tracked them a little bit, why, we played this tape over the VHF communications, which both spacecraft had, and we said: “Hey, we’re having a ball here,” and then we played this noise … And there were all these female voices and stuff. So I’m not sure that they heard that tape, actually, because after the mission Alexei was asked and he didn’t act like he knew about it, but we tried, anyway, to play a little joke on them.

  Forgetting to Throw the Switches

  There were problems during the flight. Stafford forgot to turn off a switch and he flooded a cooling system. This meant that instead of staying constant, the temperature would swing erratically in the capsule. There was also the remote possibility that if the ice had expanded enough, it would have punched a hole in the cabin and they would have died. While performing the docking, Deke Slayton hit a jet control handle and caused the command search module to yaw, and almost broke the docking interface.

  It was also reported that Vance Brand forgot to throw two switches on the Earth landing system. The Apollo crew always wanted to operate these manually so that the parachutes did not deploy in orbit. The switches had to be thrown at 12,200 meters (40,000 feet). Throwing the switches shuts off the hydrazine thrusters that are firing to keep the Command Module stable. Because they remain firing, the pressure equalization that automatically sucks in air when the pressure outside gets greater than the pressure inside, also sucked in poisonous and highly corrosive nitrogen tetroxide.

  Brand: Nitrogen tetroxide is really a bad chemical to breathe because when it sees the moisture in your lungs, it turns into an acid. So we realized that we’d been gassed. I was right next to the vent, so I passed out momentarily after we got on the water, and Tom had us all put on oxygen masks. Then I came to, and we knew we needed to get the hatch open, to get fresh air in the cabin, but we weren’t real quick to do that because we wanted to make sure the docking collar was around the spacecraft. We didn’t want any water in the cabin. Eventually we got the hatch open and fresh air. We told the docs we thought we’d had some gas, so they checked us out. Sure enough, they could see it on our lungs, and so we were in the hospital on sort of a lung treatment protocol that was very good. It actually eventually reduced the irritation in our lungs, and I guess within two weeks I was jogging, and I haven’t had any effects since then. So it was a nominal entry, except for that.

  Afterward, the flight controllers had the two switches mounted on a piece of walnut with a little brass plaque. I’m told that Vance Brand still has them on his wall at home.

  The mission was a success, and was the only time an American and Soviet spacecraft docked. When the Space Shuttle docked with the Mir space station for the first time in 1995, the USSR no longer existed.

  Soviet Success

  After all the failures and catastrophes of the Soviet lunar program and the Soyuz accidents, the USSR only slowly exorcised the demons of its space program. In 1977 Salyut 6 would finally put the Soviet space program on the slow track to success, hosting 16 crews, four of which set absolute endurance records for time in space, significantly exceeding the 84-day record set by NASA’s Skylab 4 crew during 1973–4. Space docking, and supply and refueling, were developed to be routine. There were no fatalities, and in rescuing one of their space stations, Salyut 7, the Soviets pulled off one of the most remarkable feats in the history of spaceflight.

  TIMELINE

  1975 15 July US astronauts Deke Slayton, Tom Stafford and Vance Brand blast off in an Apollo spacecraft, following Soviet cosmonauts Valeri Kuba
sov and Aleksei Leonov being launched in a Soyuz spacecraft

  17 July The Apollo and Soyuz craft dock in space and the crews transfer between them for a time—the first such linkup

  19 July The linked US and Soviet spacecraft separate

  24 July The Apollo spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean

  “Hey, there’s some tiles missing back there”

  THE MOST DANGEROUS MISSION OF ALL

  THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA (STS-1)

  1981

  When the Space Shuttle Columbia was launched in 1981, it ended a six-year period during which no American had gone into space. In that time, however, there had been 21 Soviet missions. The Soviets had, at last, reached their stride and were operating almost routinely, plying between the Earth and their series of space stations. However, the Americans could hardly have chosen a more dangerous mission to mark their return to space travel.

  So far in the story of manned spaceflight we have seen many remarkable successes, as well as some disasters and near-disasters. Most accidents involved Soviet spacecraft and were caused by inadequate technology, poor manufacturing standards or pressure from politicians. But now we encounter American astronauts embarking on what many regard as the most dangerous spaceflight in history. For the first time, and unlike on all previous missions, they are using hitherto untried technology. There has never been a mission as risky as the first flight of the Space Shuttle. When Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Neil Armstrong and all the other American astronauts were launched on a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, they did so knowing that these rockets had been tested and approved before they climbed aboard. They also had escape systems, so that if anything went wrong they stood a good chance of survival. Things were different with the Space Shuttle. The first crew, veteran astronaut John Young and rookie Bob Crippen, would make spaceflight history by riding a rocket into space on its very first launch.

  The Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-1), on the launch pad. The initials STS stand for Space Transportation System.

  Untried Technologies

  Bob Crippen, 43, had been selected as part of the second group of astronauts for the USAF Manned Orbiting Laboratory program, but when that project was canceled he moved to support the Skylab missions. He wasn’t sure why he got picked for spaceflight’s most dangerous mission.

  Crippen: Beats the heck out of me. I had anticipated that I would get to fly on one of the Shuttle flights early on, because there weren’t that many of us in the astronaut office during that period of time. I was working like everybody else was working in the office, and there were lots of qualified people. But one day we had the Space Shuttle Enterprise (an engineering test vehicle not designed to go into space) coming through on the back of the Boeing 747. It landed out at Ellington Field, Houston, Texas. I happened to go out there with George Abbey, who at that time was the Director of Flight Crew Operations. As we were strolling around the vehicle, looking at the Enterprise up there on the 747, George said something to the effect of: “Crip, would you like to fly the first one?”

  Almost everything about the mission was new and risky. It would have been relatively straightforward to make the first few flights of the Space Shuttle unmanned—even today, if all goes well, the only thing that the commander of the Shuttle must do during liftoff and ascent into orbit is throw one switch; the rest is automatic. But neither NASA nor the astronauts wanted that. Perhaps it was because it was so long since an American had been in space, or perhaps it was because so much could go wrong on the flight, that an astronaut was needed. Nevertheless, there were some who wondered if a six-year gap had led to complacency. It is true to say that many fellow astronauts feared for the lives of the crew of STS-1.

  The only thing that had been tested on the Space Shuttle was the latter part of the landing. Four flights off the back of a Boeing 747 carrier aircraft from 7620 meters (25,000 ft.) had been successful. The rockets of the Space Shuttle’s main engines (SSMEs)—three of them on the rear of the Orbiter (the part that returned to Earth), as well as the two on the side-mounted, strap-on solid-fuel boosters (SRBs)—had only been tested on the ground, never in action with a crew on board. Furthermore, the SRBs had only ever been tested lying on their side; they had never been fired standing up. The massive external tank that holds liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuel had never been through the stresses of a launch. The Orbiter’s heat shield, a 24,000 mosaic of silica tiles glued to its underbelly, had never experienced the 17,000 miles per hour (27,360 km per hour), 1600 °C reentry. Many astronauts called it a fragile, glass spacecraft.

  What’s more, the Space Shuttle relied on its computers and hundreds of thousands of lines of computer code. Could all that be tested properly? The Space Shuttle was something new: a partly reusable spacecraft system, validated by computer.

  Once the reusable twin SRBs fired, there was no way to throttle them back. In the words of one astronaut, it was then not a question of if you go, just of which direction. The SRBs, along with the SSMEs burning four million pounds of propellant in just over eight minutes would, according to the ground tests and computer models, propel a quarter-million-pound Orbiter into space to an attitude of 200 miles (322 km) and at a speed of 5 miles (8 km) a second. On its return it would reenter the atmosphere half a world away from the final landing point and, without using power, fly through the ever-increasing air, decelerate due to friction, perform elongated S-bends, and then line itself up at the right heading, altitude and speed with a 4572-meter (15,000-ft.) runway for a single-attempt landing.

  No Escape Possible

  But what if something went wrong? What would the crew do? The options were limited—very limited—and although no NASA PR official would admit it, then or now, the astronauts knew the score. The Orbiter was outfitted with SR-71 Blackbird ejection seats for its initial two-man crew. Theoretically they could be used during the first two minutes of flight, and again at the end of the mission when the Orbiter was below Mach 3 and at 3048 meters (100,000 ft.), about ten minutes before landing. But in reality few believed they would be of any use.

  Bob Crippen later said:

  Well people felt like we needed some way to get out if something went wrong; in truth, if you had to use them (the ejector seats) while the solids were firing, if you popped out and then went down through the fire trail that’s behind the solids, I don’t believe that you would have ever survived, or if you did, you wouldn’t have a parachute, because it would have been burned up in the process. But by the time the solids had burned out, you were up to too high an altitude to use it. On entry, if you were coming in short of the runway because something had happened, either you didn’t have enough energy or whatever, you could have ejected. However, the scenario that would put you there is pretty unrealistic.

  If a SSME failed it would be possible to land in Spain or Africa after a trans-Atlantic abort, but a failure during the two minutes when the SRBs were firing was a different matter. There were procedures, of course—so-called mission profiles flown in simulators. They had checklists that some astronauts referred to as something to read while you are dying.

  Attempting to Launch

  The first attempt at launch was postponed due to a computer hitch.

  Crippen: You know, the vehicle is so complicated, I fully anticipated that we would go through many, many countdowns before we ever got off. When it came down to this particular computer problem, though, I was really surprised, because that was the area I was supposed to know, and I had never seen this happen; never heard of it happening. It was where the backup computer couldn’t hear what the primary computers were saying. There were four primary computers and one backup computer, and we considered the backup absolutely essential to have, but they weren’t communicating properly. I know John and I spent an extra three hours out on the pad strapped in on our backs, for a total of six hours strapped in, before we finally gave up. In fact, that six hours is still used as the max to put people through, because it does get pretty uncomfortab
le strapped in on your back for that long a period of time. But we climbed out, and I said: “Well, this is liable to take months to get corrected,” because I didn’t know what it was. I’d never seen it. It was so unusual, and the software so critical to us. But we had, again, a number of people that were working very diligently on it. In fact, they proved what the problem was, which was an initialization thing. We just happened to catch a minute window when we started up the backup computer that caused the problem to occur. So it was rapidly concluded that: “Hey, if you go do it again, the odds are it’s not going to happen.”

  A Successful Mission

  The next launch attempt was on April 12.

  Crippen: About one minute to go, I turned to John. I said: “I think we might really do it,” and about that time, my heart rate started to go up. I think they said it was—because we were being recorded, and it was up to about 130. John’s was down about 90. He said he was just too old for his to go any faster. And sure enough, the count came on down, and the main engines started. The solid rockets went off, and away we went. First you want to make sure that the solids would do their thing, that the main engines would run, and that the tank would come off properly, and that you could light off the orbital maneuvering engines as planned; that the payload bay doors would function properly; that you could align the inertial measuring units; the star trackers would work; the environmental control system, the Freon loops, would all function. So John and I, we were pretty busy.